Royals Rumblings

Weekend Rumblings - News for October 1, 2016

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By Max Rieper@maxrieper Oct 1, 2016, 10:00am EDT

Weekend Rumblings - News for October 1, 2016

The Royals are pretty high on Paulo Orlando for next year.

The Royals now view Orlando, 30, as a late bloomer and a potentially ascending player, with a career path and a skill set similar to Lorenzo Cain's. Cain didn't figure out his offensive game until his late 20s. Cain was 28 when he hit over .300 for the first time. And Cain was 29 when he finally reached double-digits in home runs (16)....

"Is Paulo starting to come into his own? Yeah, I think so," Yost said. "No doubt [Orlando is a late bloomer]. Paulo is definitely one of those guys.

"You look at the difference between him last year and this year, it's night and day in terms of consistency."

Brandon Warne at Today’s Knuckleball looks at what derailed the Royals this year.

The offense on the whole took a step back, as the group dropped from a 98 OPS+ last year to an 88 OPS+ this year. That’s a huge reason why the Royals went from sixth in the AL in runs scored to 13th — which isn’t high enough to prop up an iffy rotation. The Royals went from finishing second, seventh and eighth in the triple-slash categories (AVG/OBP/SLG) to third, 13th and 14th.

As for Gordon, it’d be easy to blame his injury on the dip in production, but the fact of the matter is, he was hitting just .211/.319/.331 to that point.

David Lesky at Baseball Prospectus Kansas City considers Eric Hosmer’s season.

Eric Hosmer has 25 home runs and 103 RBIs this season. Both numbers are career highs. Both numbers look very good and are very shiny. Now, you might argue that RBIs aren’t even worth talking about, and I’d disagree with you. RBI truthers will tell you that the RBI doesn’t mean much, and they’re wrong. A run is a run. You win by scoring more runs, so driving in runs leads to wins. I will agree that RBIs are not nearly as indicative as the other side will believe, but they are meaningful. Anyway, I digress. So I look at this season he’s having and the power is there, the RBIs there and it looks like he’s finally becoming that corner infield power that we all hoped for. And then I look around baseball. Heading into play on Thursday, 56 players had 25 or more home runs. Last season, just 35 did. The 56th most homers in baseball last year belonged to Buster Posey, who popped 19. I’m not saying that means that in a normal home run year, Hosmer would have hit 19, but I do think we have to temper our excitement just a bit on those power numbers because relative to the game, he’s kind of been the same hitter power-wise, but this year his average has tumbled.

Jeff Pearlman writes why Bo Jackson chose baseball over football.

Jackson entered the Kansas City clubhouse, which featured a who’s who of baseball royalty. The Royals were the defending World Series champions—and with good reason. Bret Saberhagen, the ace, was the reigning American League Cy Young Award winner. Dan Quisenberry led the league in saves a record five times. Hal McRae was a three-time All-Star, Frank White a five-time All-Star.

All, however, paled in comparison to George Brett, an iconic superstar and one of the greatest players in the sport’s history. The Royals third baseman greeted Jackson warmly and took time to chat with him about the team. When it was time to leave, Stewart guided the youngster toward the exit when Brett yelled out, “Hey, Bo, good luck in football!”

Jackson whirled around and stormed toward Brett. “Oh my God!” Gonzales yelled—convinced a fight was about to break out. “Bo, don’t…”

He didn’t. Jackson smiled widely, looked Brett in the eyes and said, “George, don’t you bet on it!”

Brett stood, speechless.

Early that Monday morning, Schuerholz barged into Stewart’s office. The draft was to begin in an hour. “Art, Richard Woods called me a few minutes ago,” he said. “He said if Bo plays baseball, he wants it to be for the Kansas City Royals.”

Being out much of the year allowed Mike Moustakas to be there for his daughter.

The Royals name their Player and Pitcher of the Year for each minor league affiliate.

Bret Saberhagen could get another shot at the Hall of Fame.

Royals minor leaguer Cristian Castillo pitched one of the best games of the year, according to Baseball America.

Giants outfielder Angel Pagan takes down a fan on the field.

Can new technology bring a data revolution to fielding?

Is Justin Verlander the Cy Young frontrunner?

The playoffs would be better without the Cardinals.

Ken Rosenthal hands out his hardware.

The Blue Jays are having a beef with local media.

Enter your name in this Vin Scully story generator.

David Ortiz serves as an undercover Lyft driver to unsuspecting customers.